Inheriting the Wind
by SummersonMars
Summary: Against the wishes of her fundamentalist Christian parents, 11-year-old Mackenzie Campbell runs away from home to take her rightful place among the next class of Hogwarts students, and discovers a deeply buried secret that could change her and her siblings' lives forever. Rated T for course language and mentions of child abuse.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This has been sitting on my computer taking up space for long enough. Let's see what kind of reception it gets.

**Do not message me to tell me that not all Christians are like this.** **I'm aware.** There's a reason why the word "fundamentalist" is in the summary.

**Disclaimer: **_Harry Potter_ and everything that went into it belongs to J. K. Rowling. Everything else belongs to me.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Campbell of Little Missenden were very happy to admit that they and their family were perfect, thank you very much. They weren't normal by the standards of regular society, but regular society was made up of misguided miscreants who had little idea of the paradise that they were willfully throwing away in favor of eternal damnation. So they hardly had any desire to be considered what those people considered to be "normal". Besides, they didn't need to be like everyone else. They were perfectly happy with their perfect little life. Joseph was an American whose family had moved to England when his father had received something that he called godly insight. Like his father, he grew up to be a carpenter. Not only that, but he had his own business. He had even built the house that he and his family lived in with his own two hands; the ultimate example of his worth as a man, in his opinion. His devoted wife, Lisa, was the seventh child of one of the few proper (in Joseph's mind) Christian families living in the British Isles. She had strayed from the flock when she was a young child and spent her teenage years living with her heathen aunt and attending a secular boarding school. But happily, she realized the err of her ways, prayed fervently for God's forgiveness, and gave up her old life entirely to answer her true calling. She became the model example of a godly woman; a warm, obedient woman who cooked, cleaned, and cared for her children with a smile on her face.

And they had many children. Shortly after they married at 18 years old, the Lord saw it fit to bless them with a baby girl that they named Mary. They were 38 now, and He had seen it fit to bless them with an additional 16 children. Mary eventually left the fold; lost to worldly ideals. But they still had 16 potential soldiers that He had given them to train up. One damned soul was not a very big loss.

The morning of July 1st, 2017 started off like any other summer morning in the Campbell household. The whole house rose at the crack of dawn. Joseph and his eldest sons, Michael and Matthew, went off to work while his wife and other 14 children started their morning chores. As there were so many children in the household, the four girls over the age of 10 were assigned younger siblings to look after. If they had a buddy that was too young to reliably do their chores, they were responsible for them. Next came breakfast. That day's breakfast was a massive scrambled egg, cheese, bacon, sausage, and kipper casserole that Martha, the eldest Campbell daughter after Mary, had helped her mother cook the night before. After breakfast was cleared away by the girls, the house chores began. While the Campbells were rich in spirit, they were what one would consider to be very poor by worldly standards. To help save money on groceries, they kept chickens and a vegetable garden. While only the girls fed the chickens and collected their eggs, everyone worked under the hot July sun picking weeds, watering, and removing pests from the rows of potatoes, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and various herbs that they had planted in the half acre surrounding their house. This went on until lunch, when Margaret, the next eldest Campbell daughter, helped her mother make sandwiches. After another round of cleaning up, school began for all of the children under the age of 14. The Campbells never took a break from schooling during the summer. The children taught themselves using books and courses that Joseph had acquired from several homeschooling groups in the United States. They all learned the three Rs and what Joseph commonly referred to as 'character training', while the girls all learned basic household tasks such as making a budget and preserving canned goods. The little ones were taught by their buddies, of course. Lisa did not help much that day; she claimed that her nausea from the baby was really bad.

At around 5 pm, Joseph, Michael, and Matthew returned home, carrying the day's mail with them. Three of the youngest children, Madison, Moses, and Madeline, who had been playing near the front door at the time, froze and stared up at their father. Lisa tittered, still all smiles, and pulled them away with the help of her elder daughters. They were young. They would eventually learn that their father was tired from working for them and that they needed to know when to get out of his way and let him get to having the rest that he deserved. He was supposed to be second to God in their lives, after all.

After the swarm of children was cleared away, Joseph sat down in his favorite arm chair (that only he was allowed to sit in) in the living room and asked if dinner had been started yet. Lisa answered in the affirmative; Martha was working on some fish pies with Modesty and little Moira. (Not that Moira could help much; she was only 7 months old and had just mastered crawling and sitting still.) He grunted in appreciation, turned the radio on the end table next to the chair on (to the gospel station, of course), and went to work skimming through the pile of envelopes on his lap.

About halfway through the pile, after a couple of notices to Lisa from the welfare department, an electric bill, a very threatening letter from the BBC stating that they had not paid for a television license, (something Joseph had no intention of doing,) and a newsletter from their church, Joseph came across a very unusual letter. Instead of in a white envelope, the letter was concealed in brown parchment and stamped shut with a red wax seal bearing a coat of arms that Joseph had never seen before. Written on the back in emerald green ink was the most unusual return address he had ever seen.

_Office of Admissions  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
Somewhere in the United Kingdom_

Joseph didn't ponder for very long about how exactly he was supposed to return the letter if he needed to. Instead, he flipped it over to the front. His face and ears grew red hot when he saw who the letter was addressed to.

_Ms. Mackenzie Campbell  
The Left Bottom Bunk in the 3rd Bedroom on the 2nd Floor  
7 Mop End Lane  
Little Missenden  
Buckinghamshire_

"LISA!" Joseph's voice thundered throughout the entire house. Martha and Modesty stopped cooking, all of the children immediately went silent, and Lisa's Glasgow-like smile twitched slightly. "BRING MACKENZIE DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"


	2. Chapter 2

Mackenzie Campbell, as far as her parents were concerned, was the spawn of Satan. She lived to defy the Lord and her father; always trying to get into trouble and bring herself closer to damnation. She had spent all of July 1st in her bedroom, still smarting from the switching she had received the night before and being forced to copy as much of the Bible as she could manage before dinner, the only meal she was allowed to have that day, was ready.

Why was she punished? She wouldn't do Mathias's laundry for him.

It wasn't an unreasonable request. Mathias was 13, he was more than old enough to put his clothes in one of the washers, pour some detergent into it, and press the start button. She had done it herself hundreds of times and she was two years younger than him. Heck, Myra and Mara were eight and they had been doing their own laundry for at least a year. They even used the washboard and bucket a few times when the machines were taken. But her father would hear none of that.

"'I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence'," he had said in-between switchings with his thick American southern drawl. 1 Timothy 2:12; Mackenzie knew that that was the verse he was quoting because he said it whenever she talked back to him or her brothers, and had more than once made her copy it for hours on end. "Your duty to God is to serve me, your brothers, and your future husband. When you are told to do something, you shut your mouth and obey." He gave her six more rounds of switching until the thin tree branch flew out of his hand. (And it was always a thin tree branch, one that he always had imported from the United States. Mackenzie once heard him talk about how English trees just didn't compare to Georgian trees when it came to making proper switches.) Then he resorted to using his hand. But that didn't hurt nearly as much, especially since she always managed to dull the pain.

That was another thing that he didn't like: All of the odd 'satanic' things that she could do. She couldn't really control them. They just happened whenever she was upset or angry. She had even told her father such. But he just switched her some more for lying to him. Obviously, she didn't bother trying to explain it anymore. She just let it happen. It made the beatings a bit more tolerable, and he learned to give up when the switch left his hand since it would just keep happening if he went to pick it up. Such incidents, Mackenzie quickly learned, were a battle of attrition: Either she whimpered and cried, or he gave up and sent her to her room. She never whimpered or cried once the switch started flying.

She could hear him yelling from her room. "Let me guess: He had a bad day at work and he needs someone to take it out on," she grumbled. Shortly after, Mackenzie heard footsteps coming up the stairs and slowly approaching her room. She turned around in her chair and waited, watching the flimsy wooden door with contempt. A few seconds later, the lock clicked and her mother stuck her head in through the door, all smiles like she always was. Like all of her sisters, Mackenzie looked almost like a younger version of her mother: Long dark brown hair that was always kept back in a braid, a round face, a deep farmer's tan, and a wardrobe that consisted of nothing but conservative button up shirts and long denim skirts. The only differences were that she had inherited her father's brown eyes and long nose, her hair wasn't rapidly going grey, and her skin wasn't wrinkled from age and one too many sun burns.

"Mackenzie sweetie," Lisa chirped, the ends of her mouth stretching so far up her face that it seemed like two invisible hands were keeping them in place. "Your father would like to speak with you."

"I heard," Mackenzie grunted, hopping down from the chair and walking toward the door.

"Don't be like that," her mother said, her voice still lilting happily like it always did. "I'm sure it is just a simple mix-up." She wrung her hands. "Just a simple mix-up..."

The two walked through the house. The only sound that could be heard was their weight causing the wooden floorboards to creak. Perfectly understandable, it was an old house; the white paint on the walls was chipping in some places, the fringes on the walls were frayed and in need of repair, and in more than one place one could see the faded remnants of 'artwork' that one of the children had made on the walls. As they trekked down the stairs to the spacious living room, Mackenzie could hear the faint pop of one of the ovens' lighters and smell the garlicky scent of one of Martha's fish pies. Her empty stomach growled longingly. At least she had one thing to look forward to after getting yelled at. He wouldn't ground her for two days in a row without food, would he?

The living room, while spacious, was mostly empty space. A giant wooden crucifix took up the wall below the stairs, while a bookcase and an old wooden desk with an ancient computer took up another to its right. On the wall opposite of the stairs was an archway that lead into the dining room and kitchen, and the front door lead outside to the left of the staircase. Her father's favorite red velvet armchair sat against the bit of wall between the bookcase and the dining room arch with an end table holding a radio, a mason jar with a bunch of coins and pound notes stuffed in it, and the switch to the right of it. Her father, a very conservative looking man with slicked back brown hair, a strong jawline, and only a few wrinkles under his eyes, stared up at her angrily from the chair as she approached. On his lap was a pile of mail, and in one hand he held a brown envelope.

As they stepped off the steps, Lisa lightly grasped her daughter's shoulders and steered her in front of the chair. "I'm going to go help with dinner," she announced happily before she gave Mackenzie's shoulders a light squeeze and walked out.

"What is this?" Joseph asked curtly the instant Lisa was out of the room, holding up the brown envelope.

"A letter?" Mackenzie replied. For a second she worried about the question coming off as too sarcastic. But then she figured that there was no point in trying to speak to him 'correctly'. He would find some reason to discipline her if he really wanted to.

"Since when have you been sending letters to..." He glanced at the envelope. "'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardr-' What is this blasphemy?! Is this one of your stupid jokes?!"

"No..." She furrowed her eyebrows. Even in her wildest dreams, she wouldn't have been able to think up such an elaborate practical joke, much less convince the postman to play along with it.

"Don't lie to me, girl," he growled. "I will not have any of this... this witchcraft _shit_ in my house." As he said this, he reached into one of his pockets and dropped a handful of change into the jar. The Swear Jar; the money in it was supposed to go to charity and away from the family, where it was often sorely needed, as punishment for foul language. The jar never seemed to empty, and her father was its biggest contributor. "'And Manasseh made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.'" Mackenzie had long stopped wondering how her father was able to pull up a relevant Bible quote for any situation at a moment's notice. She swore she had copied the entire Bible at least five times over since she learned how to write and even she didn't have the whole thing memorized. Did he just spend every moment he was not at work reading it, or was he just making them up? "I don't know how you did it, but your name is on it. So I'm going to assume that you did it." He grasped the envelope in both hands and tore it in two. "You better pray that we don't get any more fake letters from this Hogmorts bullshit," more change for the jar, "cause I'm gonna give you the whoppin' of your life if I see them."

"Yes, sir," she said, pushing the words through her clenched teeth. If anyone in the family didn't answer him in that fashion, they got a switching.

"Are you giving me lip? I don't like the tone of your voice," he growled. "Get over here." And sometimes even then, they got one...

* * *

"I didn't even do anything!" Mackenzie was going to be spending the next day in her room copying more of the Bible for her 'prank'. What's worse, he made her skip dinner again. A real shame since Martha was the best cook in the house. (Even if she did have a thing for putting garlic in every savory dish that she made.) "This is such bullshit."

She had spent a few minutes lying on her bed, contemplating the wooden beams holding the mattress on the top bunk up, when someone knocked on the bedroom door. A few second later, Modesty pushed her way in, carrying a steaming plate of fish pie. Modesty, who was a year younger than Mackenzie, looked much the same as the rest of the girls, except she had inherited their mother's flat, wide nose. Behind her, Mackenzie could hear several footsteps going in different directions and the sounds of light conversation.

"Mum convinced Dad to let you have dinner," Modesty said as she sat the plate in front of her. The portions on it were small, but then again, that was how dinner usually was in the Campbell household. There were 18 mouths to feed and little money to do it with.

"Thanks," Mackenzie picked up the fork and slowly started to eat.

"I'll take it back down in the morning. Dad made us all go to our rooms after dinner. We're supposed to do our daily reflection by ourselves before we go to bed."

"Mmmhmm..."

She sat down on Mackenzie's bed. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

There was a long, awkward pause as Mackenzie ate and Modesty watched her, obviously trying to think of something to say that would make her feel better. Eventually, Modesty gave up and climbed up the ladder and into the top bunk. "I'll sneak some food up here tomorrow after lunch, if you want. I'll volunteer to help clean up again. Mordecai and Malachi will help me if I ask them to." Mordecai and Malachi were Modesty's buddies: 6-year-old identical twins who, despite living in a house that prized obedience and calm reflection from its children, were as rambunctious as any 6-year-old would be. They weren't punished nearly as much as Mackenzie and the girls were for their indiscretions. Something that Mackenzie had noticed a long time ago. When called out on it, their mother would explain that it was because they were younger and just didn't know better. Their father would spout some Bible verse that always boiled down to 'boys are better than girls' (in Mackenzie's mind anyway), and then switch them if he was in a foul mood.

"If you want... If you want to risk getting caught and Dad finding something in that stupid book that says that God hates people who feed people who are punished."

"Kenzie, don't say that."

"Fuck the Bible and fuck him!" Modesty let out an audible gasp. "Stop acting surprised, Dad says that word all the time."

"That doesn't mean we should say it."

"Oh, but Dad does because he's the head of the house, right?" Mackenzie tsked and returned her focus to her nearly empty plate.

"Things will get better," Modesty sighed, lying back on her bed. "God will provide."

Before Mackenzie could retaliate, Myra and Mara, their roommates, burst into the room. Identical twins like Mordecai and Malachi, they each sported their mother's blue eyes and flat nose. Their braids only went down to their shoulder blades.

"Mum's a witch!" Myra announced.

"Don't say things like that about Mum," Modesty said.

"It's true! We heard Dad yelling at her for being one!"

"We stayed back on the steps after dinner and listened to them," Mara said.

"Yeah," Myra continued, nodding. "He was all 'why is that devil school sending letters to Mackenzie?! I thought you stopped talking to those heathens years ago! You destroyed that wand, right?! Did you tell her anything?! What did you tell her?!' Rah rah rah!" She flailed her arms about as if she were a rampaging dinosaur. "He always mad at something. If he doesn't stop, he's going to get a... What was that thing called, Mara? Where your heart gets clogged?"

"A heart attack?"

"Yeah, that's it!" It was a wonder to Mackenzie how her younger sisters managed to stay cheerful despite their bad home life. With the twins she assumed that it was because they were younger. Though the one time when she asked Modesty, she said that she put her faith in God.

Right, because God came down and told their father to stop hitting her.

Of course, them not having, if Myra and Mara were to be believed, magic powers that went off at random probably helped too.

"Why would he yell at Mum?" Modesty asked. "When he was yelling at Kenzie, he said that it was a prank. Besides, pagans don't have schools like we do." She leaned over the guard rail on her bunk. "Kenzie, you didn't write that letter, did you?"

"No!" She snapped. "Do you think I enjoy getting yelled at? And do you really think the postman would've played along with it?"

"Probably not," Myra said. "He told on us when we left Malachi's rubber snake in the post box."

"We shouldn't've stayed in the bushes and watched," Mara said with a frown.

"Yeah well, there you go," Mackenzie said. "And he's obviously just blaming Mum for it because he's a massive git. I mean, does she seriously seem like someone who would be a witch?" The twins shook their heads.

"Kenzie, you should go to bed," Modesty said. "If anyone asks, I'll say that you looked through Proverbs and reflected on that. You'll probably feel better in the morning."

"Yeah yeah," she stood up, stretched, and rubbed her wrists. "I got all the way to Leviticus today. I don't see the point in copying all of this stuff. I'm not learning anything from it." She pulled the blankets on her bed back and climbed into it.

"I don't either," Modesty said, tucking herself in. Mara climbing into the other bottom bunk as Myra started up the ladder to the top. A second later, Modesty reached over and pulled the chain on the ceiling fan, switching the light off.

"I hope this doesn't happen tomorrow," Myra added. "I hate early bedtimes."

Mackenzie drifted off to sleep to the faint sounds of her sisters praying.

* * *

Several days later, sometime around 4 pm, a car drove up the long dirt road that served as the Campbell's driveway. It was an old car: a lime green and rust speckled Ford Prefect that looked like it had rolled sputtering and wheezing out of the 60s. Mackenzie was the first one to see it, as she was doing a diagram sketch of some of the herbs in the kitchen window for school while watching Moses and Madeline play in their playpen. As she watched, a short, slightly pudgy looking man with brown hair and a round face on the passenger side got out and started up towards the porch. Eventually, he disappeared from sight and the door bell rang.

"Coming!" Her mother trilled from the living room. Mackenzie returned to her drawing. It was probably someone from the government or a church official.

"Hello!" Mackenzie could imagine her mother opening the door, her obnoxious fake smile stretching from ear to ear.

"Lisa Campbell?"

"I prefer Mrs. Joseph Campbell, but yes?"

"My name is Neville Longbottom. I'm the professor of Herbology at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."


	3. Chapter 3

About five minutes later, the living room and kitchen were empty of everyone but Mackenzie, her mother, and Mr. Longbottom. Lisa put a kettle on for tea, the corners of her mouth straining to reach her temples and her hands visibly shaking. Mackenzie sat and watched, swinging her legs back and forth, while Mr. Longbottom looked down at the table, seemingly lost in thought. The silence was as thick as pea soup.

"Actually," Mr. Longbottom finally said as the tea kettle started to whistle, "you do look familiar. You were in Ravenclaw, weren't you?"

"I didn't go to Hogwarts at all," she replied airily while reaching for the stove dial. "I am not a witch or whatever nonsense you believe. This is all a big misunderstanding."

"You did go to Hogwarts. The headmaster told me that you were a student there, and in the same year as me even. That's why we didn't send someone out with the letter. We thought that you would be able to explai-"

"I am _not_ a witch," Lisa repeated curtly. "Neither is Mackenzie nor any of my other children. We are a Christian family. We do not believe in such nonsense."

Mr. Longbottom sighed. "It's not a matter of believing, Mrs. Campbell. You can not believe in magic and still be able to use it."

"We do _not_ believe in such nonsense!_" _Mackenzie's mother's hand was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. "Now, my husband will be home in a few minutes. You need to explain to him that this was a mistake and that Mackenzie mailed you for a prank. Assuming your schoo-"

"She didn't send us anything!" Now it was Mr. Longbottom's turn to sound testy. "Her name is on the roster and has been since she was born. As was yours if the headmaster is to be believed. And I do believe him."

"Well, it was obviously some mistake. Maybe you had someone in your school with the same name as me."

"We would be able to tell the diff-"

"You probably want someone with the same name as my daughter but got the address wrong." She took a few mugs out of the cabinet. "Do you take milk or sugar with your tea?"

The two continued to argue back and forth for a while. Mackenzie watched as Mr. Longbottom kept trying to explain that the whole thing wasn't a joke while her mother dodged and explained everything away as swiftly as a fencer wearing rubber cement. About halfway through her tea and during yet another iteration of "No, there was no mistake" by Mr. Longbottom, Mackenzie decided to speak up.

"Don't I get a say in this?"

"Drink your tea, sweetie."

Mackenzie grumbled and laid her head on the table.

"Even if she doesn't go to Hogwarts, she is still required by law to learn how to use her powers," Longbottom said.

"Once again, Mr. Longbottom, we are a Christian family. We do not believe in or teach such blasphemous ideals."

"This isn't a matter of believing!"

"What's going on in here?" Mackenzie nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard her father's voice coming from the kitchen archway. It was calmer than usual, but that was how he usually was whenever they had guests. If you didn't show joyful countenance, then your life was obviously bad or you were ungrateful for everything God gave you, according to him. And God forbid if the neighbors thought anyone in the house was unhappy. (Even if they never spoke to their neighbors or had them over.) As she turned, she saw Michael and Matthew beat a hasty retreat into the living room. It was interesting to Mackenzie: both of them were pretty much adults; 18 and 17, with Michael already in the middle of courting someone, and even they seemed scared of their father.

Her mother's grin stretched so far up her face that Mackenzie swore that her lips were going to split open. "Mr. Longbottom here says that he's from the school that Mackenzie mailed that prank letter from."

"Bloody hell, woman, are you daft?! It wasn't a prank!"

"Mr. Longbottom, I would appreciate it if you didn't insult my wife like that," her father said, his face stoic. Inside, he was probably itching to beat the devil out of the other man.

"Maybe if your wife didn't act so... ignorant…" Mr. Longbottom didn't look the least bit intimidated by him: he stared dead into her father's eyes. His features just as stern.

"It's ignorant to stay resolute in one's beliefs? Especially when faced with someone claiming to be from a school that doesn't exist?"

"Hogwarts does exist! It's a real school that has existed for hundreds of years!"

"Okay then, Mr. Longbottom, let's say that this school of yours exists. How exactly would one go about getting to it? The letter we received didn't have a proper return address."

"The school's location is kept secret for the safety of the students and staff."

"I would think that as the parent of a potential student, I would have the right to know where my child is going to be for a good part of the year."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Campbell, but I can't reveal that information to you."

Mackenzie's father went silent. She could see his temples twitching in frustration and his ears growing red. If Mr. Longbottom were one of her siblings, this would have been the part where he got up in his face and screamed at him until he told him the school's location. But they all knew that polite society frowned on that sort of thing. After a moment's thought, he continued. "Okay then, Mr. Longbottom. I suppose that I should ask you to do the obvious thing for me."

"Which is?"

"Can you show us a spell? Show us what it is exactly that your students learn."

"I should have done that in the first place," Mr. Longbottom grumbled and reached to his side. Mackenzie only then noticed the long stick of ornately whittled wood sticking out of his pants pocket; a wand. As he held it up for the others to see, her mother let out a nervous chuckle.

"Sweetie, he doesn't need to do that. It's obvious that-" Her father glared at her mother. She immediately went silent and eyed the wand nervously.

Mr. Longbottom lifted the wand up into the air and, after glancing around the room, pointed it at the potted herbs in the window. "Herbivicus!" Suddenly, the tiny sprouts shot up a few inches and rapidly grew more leaves until they looked like fully mature plants ready to be harvested.

Mackenzie would have stared at the newly matured plants in awe if all hell hadn't broken loose. Her mother began to scream like a banshee, frozen in place, eyes tightly shut, her hands clutching the sides of her head as she shook it. "No! No! Out! Get out! Joseph, get him out of here before he kills us all!"

"It's just a plant-growing charm! It's not going to kill you!" His words fell on deaf ears. Her father was already making his way across the room.

"Michael, get my rifle!" he screamed as he tried to throw himself onto the other man.

"Protego!" Suddenly, he was knocked back by an invisible wall that seemed to spring up around Mr. Longbottom. As her father fell to the floor, Mr. Longbottom jumped over him and made a mad dash out of the kitchen and out the front door. The sounds of a gunshot and splintering wood followed the door slamming, which was soon followed by the sound of the Ford Prefect turning over and speeding off.

As the sounds faded, an odd aura of calm fell on the entire house. No one moved except for Michael, who walked into the kitchen, the double barreled rifle in his arms still smoking. "I'll fix the door, Dad."

Her father grunted as he picked himself off the floor. For a while, he didn't say anything; just scanned the room, looking from one face to the next, then to the broken front door. Finally, he settled on Mackenzie, still dazed from what had just happened. "You, in your room! NOW!" She jumped from the seat as if it were on fire and dashed up the steps as fast as her legs could carry her.

When she got to her room, she found one of her sisters, 5-year-old Miriam, sitting on her bed. Her braided pigtails waved in the breeze from the open window. In her tiny hands was a familiar-looking object: a brown piece of paper covered with a red wax seal and green writing. As Mackenzie opened the door, Miriam looked up, looked back at the letter, then jumped off the bed and walked up to her, holding out the paper. "Letter for you."

"A letter? Where from?"

"There," Miriam pointed at the open window. "A owl brought it."

"An owl... Right..." She took the letter from her.

"Miriam!" Somewhere down the hall, 15-year-old Margaret called and was slowly getting closer. Mackenzie looked the paper over. She didn't see much, but she did catch a glimpse of the word "Hogwarts" in the return address on the back. She immediately belly flopped onto her bed and shoved it under her pillow. A second later, Margaret stepped into the doorway. "Miriam, there you are!" She came in and scooped the little girl up. "You know better than to run off like that. Kenzie's probably busy with something and you're bothering her." She looked at Mackenzie. "Kenzie, close the window. The air conditioner's on."

"I saw a owl," Miriam said, beaming. Mackenzie cringed internally.

"You did?! What color was it?" Margaret replied, smiling and mimicking that same insincere-sounding tone of voice that their mother often used when they had their monthly one-on-one time with her. Mackenzie noticed it a long time ago and hated it, but the younger kids ate it up.

"Brown."

"Yes, a lot of owls are brown. Come on, we need to go do the laundry," Margaret said as she started back down the hall. As her older sister's footsteps faded down the hall, Mackenzie sighed and shut the bedroom door. Then, she hopped back onto her bed, pulled the letter out from her pillow, and tore it open. Inside were two pieces of paper in the same shade of brown as the envelope with the same green writing.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Nicholas Aldridge  
(Order of Merlin, First Class)_

_Dear Ms. Campbell,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. (All books and equipment can be obtained from Diagon Alley in London.)_

_Our records indicate that you and your family qualify for a bursary to help pay for supplies. To claim this bursary, please see our representative in the Department of Magical Education in the Ministry of Magic._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Prudence Brown  
Deputy Headmistress_

As expected, the second piece of paper was a list of supplies and a note about first years not being allowed to have their own broomsticks. The list contained all manner of interesting things: a wand, a cauldron, brass scales...

She laid on her bed for an hour, rereading the letter and wondering about all of the crazy things that went on and were taught at Hogwarts. Eventually, Modesty and Mara came into the room carrying plates of roast and mashed potato casserole. They were followed by the sounds of footsteps in the hall. It was still light out when they came in, so Mackenzie knew that something was wrong before Modesty even began to explain.

"Dad sent us all to our rooms for the night," she said as she placed the two plates she was carrying on the desk. "We're supposed to do our reflections and go straight to bed after we eat." She glanced over at the window. "Why is the window open? The air conditioner's on."

"Close the door and I'll tell you," Mackenzie said as she got up to close the window. Mara sat her plate down and shut the door. "Okay, so... You two promise not to tell anyone about this, right?"

"What about Myra?" Mara asked. "You know I tell Myra everything."

"You can tell her, but she can't tell anyone else."

"I don't think she will." She was right. Myra wasn't really one to go spilling secrets. She knew what happened when someone got in trouble.

"Where is she, anyway?" Modesty asked.

"She said she had to do something real quick and ran off."

"Okay..."

"Anyway, Miriam said that an owl came to the window with this," Mackenzie held up the brown parchment envelope and its contents. "It must've came when Mum and Dad were fighting with Mr. Longbottom downstairs."

"Mr. Longbottom?" Modesty asked.

"A teacher from Hogwarts. The school sent him to convince them to let me go." Mackenzie rolled her eyes. "Fat lot of good that did..."

"Is that why there's a hole in the front door? Mathias asked Dad how it got there and he just growled."

"Yeah. Dad told Michael to shoot him."

Modesty gasped. "But he could go to jail for that!"

"I don't think Dad cares," Mackenzie said. "Also, I think Michael missed. Mr. Longbottom had this... shield spell thing that he could do." She held out the papers. "Take a look. Some of this stuff sounds bonkers."

Her two sisters silently looked over the sheets of paper, trading them between each other a few times, before Mara finally spoke up. "Darn! Myra was right. Witches do fly on brooms."

"So she's seen this already?" Modesty gave her younger sister a confused glance.

"No. We got into an argument about it a few days ago. I told her that they probably don't because the broom would break and it would be uncomfortable to sit on."

"What would be uncomfortable to sit on?" All of the girls flinched as Myra's voice came from the other side of their bedroom door. Mara opened it to reveal her twin standing there, dinner plate in hand. She motioned to her to come in, which Myra obliged.

"You can't tell anybody about this," Mara explained after she closed the door and handed Myra the supply list. "That witch school Kenzie was talking about is real!"

Myra looked it over for a few seconds before smiling smugly. "Ha! Told you! You owe me a quid!"

"We weren't betting money!"

"We've got more important stuff to talk about right now," Mackenzie growled. "Mr. Longbottom said that anyone who can use magic has to learn how to use it. It's one of their laws."

"Mum and Dad will never let you go there," Modesty replied.

"No shit..." Modesty cringed at the swear.

"Oh yeah, I just got done listening to them," Myra said, "Dad was talking about sending Kenzie to the US."

Mackenzie's heart sank into her stomach. "What? Why?"

"To put you in that... camp thing that Michael was in."

"The Quest of the Heart?" Modesty asked.

"Yeah." A low mumble emitted from the rest of the group. It was one of those things that everyone in the family had silently agreed not to talk about. Before he vanished to go to said camp, Michael was rebellious and, according to their father, possessed by worldly demons. When he came back, his head was shaved clean and his behavior was unnervingly submissive. That was a few years ago and even then, Mackenzie found it creepy. Whatever he saw or experienced there must have been horrible. "Come on," Myra grabbed onto her arm. "They're probably still down there."

Myra pulled her down the hallway with Modesty and Mara in tow. They sneaked softly, doing their best to avoid the creaky floorboards. As they got closer to the stairs, they could hear their father's booming voice.

"This is the only way we are going to be able to nip this in the bud! If it worked for Michael, it will work for her! I will _not_ have this blatant disrespect in my house! My word should be law to her!"

"You don't think she's too young to go overseas by herself?"

The four of them huddled in a darkened corner just to the side of the stairs, out of sight. To go down the stairs any further would have just been asking for trouble for all of them.

"She doesn't seem to think so! Seeing as she doesn't seem to need a proper father figure in her life! If she gets in trouble in Michigan, then it's God's will and punishment for her disobedience!"

"What if they seriously hurt her?! Or someone grabs her on the way there?! Would you care?!"

"What did I just say, woman?! What is with this sudden disobedience from you?! 'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord!'"

"I'm just saying-"

Their mother's words were abruptly silenced by a loud slap. All four of them flinched. Modesty buried her face in Mackenzie's shoulder. All they could hear for a few moments afterwards was their mother sobbing softly.

"She's going. End of story. And if I have to murder any of those heathens that comes to stop me, then so be it."

Mackenzie shuddered. Whatever was at Hogwarts had to have been infinitely better than whatever punishments awaited her at the camp in Michigan. Even if it was full of godless witches and wizards like her father claimed.

She decided then and there that she had to get to Hogwarts and away from her father. No matter what.


End file.
